Renegade Kid is known for its fantastic 3DS eShop titles like Mutant Mudds and Bomb Monkey. Now Renegade Kid is releasing a new racing game on the 3DS eShop with their new title, ATV Wild Ride 3D.

 

ATV Wild Ride 3D is a $7.99 ATV racer from Renegade Kid. ATV Wild Ride 3D is a remastered 3D upgrade of the original DS title, ATV Wild Ride. This remastered upgrade adds better graphics at a higher resolution in 3D. Unlike most titles on the eShop, ATV Wild Ride 3D features a multiplayer mode that’s not only limited to local wireless but also supports online play. In order to play over local wireless, both players will need to own a copy of the game, download play is not supported. On online play, you can play against friends you have registered on your 3DS system or just anyone else who happens to be online at the time. From my experience of playing online against local members of the press, the online multiplayer works fantastic. There wasn’t any lag during all of the races I played in and the time it took to load a track was speedy. I’m very happy about the implementation of the online multiplayer as it gives longer life to the game and give me reason to continue playing even after the competition of the story mode. There’s also an online ranking system that tracks your racing scores against everyone else who’s played online. Along with the online ranking, the game keeps track of your local race times so you can also keep track of your best race times that you’ve played offline.

Single player mode has a variety of different game modes. World Tour is pretty much the story mode of the game. You can race to unlock new world tour, unlock new racers, and ATVs in the process. There’s a total of 6 world tours that get increasingly more difficult, especially after the third world tour. Each world tour consists of four tracks and varies on different racing modes like a regular race, free style, and elimination.  Depending on how well you are at the game, you may be able to beat all six in a in a single day. Quick Race is exactly what it sounds like, an option to jump into a quick race with your own custom racing options. Free style mode is focused on gaining trick points, who ever owns the most points by the time limit wins the race. There’s also a time trials mode to race against your best scores.

ATV Wild Ride 3D features a total of 24 different off-road tracks,  12 racers, and 12 ATVs. New tracks, racers, and ATVs can be unlocked via the World Tour mode. Controls are very simple, you control your racer with the circle pad or d-pad. The a button is used to accelerate, b is to brake/reverse and the x button is for using your nitro. Racers will need to perform tricks to gain nitro. Tricks can be preformed by driving up a ramp and while in the air you press the L + d-pad, R+ d-pad, or L+R+d-pad. The L button does a quick trick that gives you half a bar of nitro. The R button performs a medium trick that gives you one bar of nitro. The Long tricks, which are preformed by holding down both the L and R button gives you a bar and a half of nitro.

At the beginning of every race, the game counts you down from three to start your race. Just like in  Mario Kart, if you time your ATV’s ignition right, you’ll get a boost start at the beginning of the race. Each race can hold a total of four racers. The terrains go across the world from locations like the U.S.A and Canada to England and Thailand. The tracks are pretty simply at first glance, there’s some flat land and then there are ramps where you can perform tricks to earn nitro. However, once you start racing, you’ll learn that you have to time how high and far you can jump on ramps to determine what tricks you can perform. In addition, you can’t earn nitro for doing the same trick twice in a row so you’ll have to mix things up to earn that nitro. Sometimes you’ll over do it and perform long tricks when you only have enough air for a medium tricks. Racers can also perform pre-jumps right before hitting the top of a ramp by pushing up on the circle pad. This gives the racer a little bit more air than usual to perform longer tricks and earn more nitro. It sounds somewhat complicated at first, but after a few matches you’ll get the hang of it.

The visuals of ATV Wild Ride 3D are ok, but that’s it. They’re nothing extraordinary to talk about but don’t get me wrong, they’re not horrible, just ok. The textures of the ground and mountain terrain are muddy while things like the grass and palm trees are a bit sharper. There’s also some pretty cool little touches to the developer’s previous game works. You’ll occasionally see Mutant Mudds and Bomb Monkey ads across some of the tracks. The racer Simon Jeremy also wears the game developer’s skull logo on his shirt. The 3D effect in ATV Wild Ride 3D is really awesome. Just like Mario Kart 7, the 3D effect gives a great new perspective look at the track in front of you. The game looks great in 3D and I played most of it with 3D turned on.

“The game looks great in 3D and I played most of it with 3D turned on”

 

There’s a lot of punk rock music in ATV Wild Ride 3D. It gives me a nice reminiscence of playing Tony Hawk on the Nintendo 64 which introduced me to a lot of new punk rock bands. If you were a fan of the songs in the Tony Hawk game series for the Nintendo 64, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the music in ATV Wild Ride 3D. The music is great and it goes well with the game. However, you’re not a fan of the music or the game’s sound effects, like the racer’s voices, you can turn them off or lower them in the game’s options menu.

“The multiplayer aspect of the game is where most will have the most enjoyment and the vital reason to pick up ATV Wild Ride 3D.”

 

ATV Wild Ride 3D is a great racing game. Renegade Kid is really pushing the move towards online compatible eShop games. There really aren’t that many online eShop games with the exception of some of Renegade Kid’s titles like Planet Crashers and now ATV Wild Ride 3D. The “story mode” aspect of the game is short in terms of content and can easily be beaten in a day’s time depending on the player’s skills. However, the multiplayer aspect of the game is where most will have the most enjoyment and the vital reason to pick up ATV Wild Ride 3D. You can play with friends or anyone else online and there’s even an online ranking system to keep track of your score against everyone else online. During my time with the ATV Wild Ride 3D, I found my self constantly looking for new techniques to get the most out of tricks and nitro to get better against racing others online. Gameplay is fun and is surprisingly more strategic than I thought when I first took a look at ATV Wild Ride 3D.

While playing for the aspect of earning things can only last so long with the world tour section being so short, online multiplayer is a blast and will be the thing that keeps player racing. With that said, if you don’t have any friends who are also playing ATV Wild Ride 3D you will most likely be bored with the title in a matter of days. In addition, the online multiplayer mode is only as good as the community that makes it up. There’s no telling how many people will be on the online multiplayer service in the future. As of now, it’s pretty empty with only members of the press having access to the game. ATV Wild Ride 3D is a great game, while it lasts.

A press copy of ATV Wild Ride 3D was provided by Renegade Kid, thank you.

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